Redding School District

As a young Englishman, Jonas Hanway saw very little of England.  He was a traveling trader whose business trips took him to Russia and the Far East.  In 1740 Jonas was selling wool goods in Persia and it was then and there that he happened across an ancient item that was carried by two attendants of a Sultan.  The item belonged to the Sultan and it utterly fascinated Jonas.  He tried to figure out a way to make it smaller and more compact so it could be more useful.  He worked for some time until he had manufactured several hundred of his new compact version to sell right in Persia.  Eventually, the Sultan, the owner of the original, learned that Jonas was planning to pedal imitations and he was angered.  He commanded Jonas captured dead or alive because you see the Sultan saw this item that Jonas was selling as a sign of sovereignty and for rulers only.  Upon hearing of his impending capture, Jonas fled Persia and returned to England with only his fascinating Far Eastern idea with him.

With the money that he had made in his endeavors, he began to manufacture the handheld device that he had discovered on the other side of the world.  Carrying one personally wherever he went, Jonas became a walking billboard or a one-man advertisement for his most unusual product.  Well, his product eventually swept through England and to all ends of everywhere known.  

It wasn't until two years after Jonas Handway's death that his item appeared in the Americas.  Today we take it for granted and don't really use it until it is needed.  There is a monument in Westminster Abbey to Jonas Hanway and many remember him as a philanthropist, founder of hospitals and orphanages, a man of charity who retired at thirty-eight to do good with his fortune.  But you and I can remember this young English merchant who stumbled across a Sultan's sovereign symbol and reproduced it to give us something that we rarely carry with us but can't do without when we need it.  

I will tell you what this item is shortly but a side note to this story is an interesting one.  Jonas Hanway's invention made him lots of friends but he also made a number of enemies.   Specifically, horse-drawn taxi drivers.  Until the Hanway invention, the covered carriage monopolized the mobile shelter options.   Jonas Hanway was offering a reliable alternative to the taxi.  It is the clever device that you know as the umbrella.

Sometimes in our drive to improve student outcomes, we miss some of the most simple solutions.  Increased well-organized engaging direct instruction in the classroom and targeted 30 minutes intervention times five days a week as the most successful ways to move student learning forward.  These are not new ideas but ideas from the history of educational strategies that work.  Like Jonas Hanway, it is our job to figure out how to take these ideas and implement them in ways that grow and proliferate to give us the outcomes we are looking for.  For Jonas it was selling his item and making money, for us, it is about increased student learning.  

I am always so proud of our district folks who continue the march to better and better practices that make a difference.  I have been in our classrooms and see the simple "umbrella" ideas proliferating across our district and our data looks very exciting.  Thanks for everyone's grand work to help our kids.   

• Masking on campus is a choice for students and staff.  Please support everyone's choice and continue to focus on learning as our goal.
• Testing protocol for staff is still in place and open to everyone that would like to be tested.
• Take-home tests will be available for distribution to staff and students before Spring Break and a plan is forethcoming.